House Blocks 1 Contra Aid Plan

April 24, 1985|By Chris Reidy, Sentinel Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — By a vote of 53 to 46 the Republican-controlled Senate Tuesday approved aid to Nicaraguan rebels after President Reagan made a last-minute concession to resume bilateral talks with the Sandinista government.

Intent on delivering Reagan a symbolic defeat, the Democrat-controlled House later rejected the administration's original proposal formulated three weeks ago that permits some of the $14 million to be used by the contras for military purposes.

The largely partisan House vote was 248 to 180 against Reagan's plan; 208 Democrats and 40 Republicans voted against aid. Forty Democrats and 140 Republicans sided with the president.

The House is set to vote today on two alternatives to contra aid -- one a Democratic proposal, the other a Republican proposal that embraces the spirit of Reagan's last-minute concession.

Fifteen of Florida's 19-member House delegation, including all seven Republicans, voted with Reagan.

Contra aid was opposed by four Florida Democrats -- Charles Bennett of Jacksonville, Don Fuqua of Alpha, William Lehman of Miami, and Buddy MacKay of Ocala.

In the Senate, 43 Republicans and 10 Democrats voted for the contra aid proposal; 37 Democrats and nine Republicans voted against. Sen. John East, R- N.C., did not vote because he is in the hospital.

Both Florida senators, Lawton Chiles, a Democrat, and Paula Hawkins, a Republican, supported aid to the contra guerrillas.

Reagan's earlier insistence that the contras, and not the United States, should be negotiating with the Sandinistas had been a sticking point with Democrats.

Reagan's offer was in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole, who distributed copies.

Dole described the letter from Reagan as a ''carefully crafted'' effort to reach a broad bipartisan consensus.

''I intend to resume bilateral talks with the government of Nicaragua,'' Reagan wrote to Dole, ''and will instruct our representatives in those talks to press for a cease-fire as well as church-mediated dialogue between the contending Nicaraguans.''

Reagan expressed the hope that talks between the United States and Nicaragua would encourage a regional peace.

He emphasized that he would not let the Sandinistas exploit the cease- fire for military advantage.

Reagan wrote that he ''would not expect the democratic resistance to continue to observe a cease-fire which was unfairly working to their disadvantage.''

There were many indications before the House vote came that the administration's aid plan for the contras appeared doomed to defeat.

Debate during the day and into the night was often bitter and divisive, evoking painful comparisons to the Vietnam War.

''The vote today in the Senate,'' said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, ''is the equivalent of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964.''

That resolution enabled President Lyndon Johnson to expand the U.S. military role in Vietnam.

At one point, Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., accused Democratic senators of meddling in foreign policy, the rightful preserve of the executive branch.

Reagan retreated from a position of seeking some military aid, but disputes persisted on how the humanitarian aid was to be disbursed and who the people getting it should be.

The president still called for the aid to be disbursed directly by the CIA to the guerrillas.

Acknowledging that Reagan had ''come a long way,'' Senate Minority Leader Robert Byrd expressed reservations about the CIA's role in disbursing the aid. ''That is one big problem.''

A Democratic alternative in the House proposes that $10 million in humanitarian aid be funneled through either the Red Cross or the United Nations. The aid could be distributed only to refugees outside Nicaragua.

The remaining $4 million would be allocated to advancing the regional peace negotiations being pushed by the four Contadora nations of Colombia, Venezuela, Panama and Mexico.

Hawkins said in the Senate the Sandinista government is a totalitarian regime and a Soviet ally.

The Sandinistas pose a strategic threat to the United States, the vital Caribbean shipping lanes and the Panama Canal, Hawkins said.

Not only does Nicaragua seek to export Marxist revolution to its neighbors, she said, but it is also trafficking in illegal drugs.

''What do we find in Nicaragua under the Sandinistas?'' Hawkins said. ''Murder, disappearances, torture and forced relocations.''

Advocating military aid to the contras, McCollum said on the House floor, ''Economic, diplomatic and political pressure is not enough when you're dealing with communist regimes.''

He said of the Sandinistas, ''We have to treat them as we treat the Soviet Union and the PLO.''

Many advocates of aid to the contras noted that there are terrorist groups in Nicaragua.

Also, they contended, Nicaraguan military forces are disproportionately large for the country's defensive needs. Especially troubling is the building of an airstrip that could be used as a base for Soviet bombers and reconnaissance aircraft.

Opponents argue that aiding the contras is tantamount to engaging in a covert war against Nicaragua. Such a war, the opponents claim, undermines U.S. policy objectives in Central America, in part because the contras routinely commit atrocities and are guilty of human rights violations.

The opponents also assert that the contras are dominated by supporters of the corrupt Somoza government that the Sandinistas overthrew.

Providing aid and comfort to such dubious friends, this argument goes, undermines the U.S. claim to be the leader of the free world.